Los Alamos scandal prompts research shutdown

Washington  The Energy Department, responding to a security scandal at the Los Alamos weapons lab, ordered a halt Friday to classified work at as many as two dozen facilities that use removable computer disks like those missing at the New Mexico lab.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said the "stand-down" at operations that use the disks, containing classified material involving nuclear weapons research, was needed to get better control over the devices.

The disks, known as "controlled removable electronic media" or CREM, have been at the heart of an uproar over lax security at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where work has been stopped as scientists search for two of the disks reported missing on July 7.

Fifteen workers have been suspended, including 11 who had access to a safe where the disks were stored. Officials believed they had been accounted for in an April inventory, but that also is being questioned because of possible irregularities in that audit.

The missing Los Alamos disks raised concern within the Energy Department about the handling of the devices at other facilities involved in nuclear weapons research, department officials said.

Abraham said he wanted to "minimize the risk of human error or malfeasance" that could compromise the classified nuclear-related information held in the devices that are used at DOE facilities nationwide in nuclear-related work.

"While we have no evidence that the problems currently being investigated (at Los Alamos) are present elsewhere, we have a responsibility to take all necessary action to prevent such problems from occurring at all," Abraham said in a statement.

The department declined to identified the sites that will be affected by the work suspensions.